'Godzilla:' What's the verdict?

By Lisa Respers France, CNN

Updated 10:24 PM ET, Sat May 17, 2014

Photos: Master of Monsters13 photos

Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Eiji Tsuburaya was a visual effects mastermind, and audiences are still reaping the rewards of his genius. As the man behind such classics as "Godzilla" and "Ultraman," Tsuburaya is the subject of the book "Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters." Here he runs through the direction of the battle between Godzilla and King Ghidorah in 1965's "The Great Monster War." Click through for a look at more images from the book.

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Mechanical engineer Akinori Takagi, left, and members of the effects crew work on the 1964 film "The Greatest Battle on Earth."

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Tsuburaya with a prop from 1968's Admiral Yamamoto. The book about his amazing career, "Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters," is now in paperback.

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – The King Kong costume constructed for 1962's "King Kong vs. Godzilla" was reused in episode 2 of the Eiji TV series "Ultra Q," "Goro and Goroh," as the monster Goro.

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Tsuburaya and the 33-foot Mothra "costume" in 1961. Note the detailed miniature fields in the background.

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Rodan descends upon Fukuoka City in 1956's "Rodan." Since the title beast was a flying monster, Tsuburaya's crew had the opportunity to build more intricate and elaborate cityscapes than they had for "Godzilla."

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Tsuburaya supervises Mothra's attack on New Kirk City in 1961.

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Tsuburaya supervises an effects scene from 1955's "Godzilla Raids Again." The Godzilla costume was considerably thinner than the one used in the first movie.

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Godzila on the beach, shooting a scene for the U.S. version of 1964's "Mothra vs. Godzilla."

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Katsumi Tezuka offers a drink to Haruto Nakajima, left, while filming the U.S. version of "Mothra vs. Godzilla."

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Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters – Haruo Nakajima in the Godzilla costume from 1966's "Big Duel in the South Seas." By this time, he'd spent more than 10 years playing the role of Japan's most beloved monster.

Story highlights

One critic complains that the script forces the actors to "over-emote"

Another calls it "a summer blockbuster that actually leaves you wanting more"

It's expected to be a monster of a movie this weekend, but what's the buzz on "Godzilla"?

Director Gareth Edwards' film, starring Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ken Watanabe, has been eagerly anticipated by fans (some of whom still haven't gotten over the 1998 version with Matthew Broderick), and critics are sounding off.

The new "Godzilla" focuses on an engineer (Cranston) determined to solve a yearslong mystery and his frustrated son (Taylor-Johnson), who just wants his dad to let it go. And of course, there are monsters.

"In one, Bryan Cranston plays a nuclear engineer with a tragic past who's racing to expose the truth about a series of seismic anomalies, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is his estranged soldier son, and Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins are a pair of exposition-spouting scientists trying to keep straight faces while talking about electromagnetic pulses and mankind's hubris," he wrote. "In the other, mammoth CG beasts knock the snot out of one another. Only one of these movies is any good. Thankfully, it's the monster one."

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone seemed to agree.

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"It would take an insomniac to wade through all these plot complications without dozing," Travers wrote. "The actors are top-tier, but they over-emote to sell a human drama that never rises above soap opera. Cranston deserves better than a script that confuses hysterics with breaking bad."

The New York Daily News' Joe Neumaier said that "60 years after he first stomped on Tokyo, the big green lizard has been given fresh scales for the rebooted 'Godzilla.' Yet despite a few fiery breaths, there's mostly hot air from a lot of serious actors slumming it."

"For better or for worse, depending on how you like the end result, Edwards has made a film that stands apart from how pretty much anyone else would have handled this, and I like that he remembered how important 'awe' is to something that hopes to be 'awesome,' " McWeeny wrote.

The Verge's Bryan Bishop said that Edwards delivers as a director.

"Rather than reaching for the low-hanging fruit of wall-to-wall action, Edwards conjures up a mix of slowly escalating tension and visual-effects wizardry," he wrote. "The result may not be the monster movie some audiences are expecting, but it's something better: a summer blockbuster that actually leaves you wanting more."

But what you think you are hearing with that Godzilla roar may be deceiving. The roar is actually octaves beyond the human range of hearing, so the design duo used special Japanese microphones to slow the sound so it falls within audience's hearing range.